The Interior Life Of: Liza Laserow Berglund
Liza Laserow Berglund broke with the Scandi tradition of taking it slow when it came to purchasing her Stockholm apartment in 2021. After living in New York for 12 years, the entrepreneur and her husband Fabian Berglund knew exactly what kind of place they wanted, and weren’t afraid to chase it. It was a similar conviction that saw the couple launch the Stockholm-based rug atelier Nordic Knots in 2016, along with her brother-in-law Felix, with the goal of creating quality, affordable rugs. ‘After
the first viewing [the broker] asked, “Do you want to go home and think about this?” and we immediately replied, “No, we want it. Call the seller – we’re taking it”,’ Berglund recalls, laughing. ‘Nordic Knots was growing, we didn’t have a daycare for our son organised, so it was kind of chaotic, but we needed a home.’
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Berglund moved her family – including the couple’s four-year-old son Ben – into the 1882apartment in the heart of the Swedish capital, walking distance from Ben’s daycare, the Nordic Knot offices and the giant park Humlegården. ‘My husband and I run there daily to stay sane,’ she adds. It’s no surprise the pair need time to switch off. Following collaborations with interior designer Fabrizio Casiraghi and Studio Giancarlo Valle, Nordic Knots is increasingly popular with the fashion crowd, winning fans including content creator Jessie Bush, furniture dealer Hollie Bowden, homeware designer Matilda Goad and supermodel Josephine Skriver. In June, Nordic Knots opened its flagship store in Soho, New York.
Fortunately for the couple, most of the apartment’s original features remained intact, from the crown moulding and trim work to the herringbone parquet-oak floors. ‘It’s a corner apartment, so we have loads of windows,’ Berglund says. ‘Light is something you cherish in Sweden.’
With the help of a close friend, who is an architect, the couple set about moving the kitchen to the biggest room of the apartment, and knocking down a wall to open up the bathroom. ‘I didn’t want to make the home look too polished,’ she says. ‘I love the idea of a Parisian apartment where everything isn’t too conceptualised. I wanted it to all feel very authentic.’
Berglund’s ambition, to create a sense of ‘ease, practicality and simplicity’ in her home, is a thread that runs throughout her design aesthetic, most notably her wardrobe. Today, she is wearing a shirt by The Row, vintage Levi’s jeans and a pair of knitted ballerina flats from Toteme. ‘I’m very particular about what I bring into my closet, and dress mainly in black and white,’ she says. This would explain the apartment’s matte ‘Gallery White’ palette. ‘It’s the perfect non-colour,’ she says, defending her love of the neutral. ‘You can build on white rather than becoming fixated by a certain hue.’
The former antiques dealer and interior designer credits her childhood for helping her develop an astute eye for detail. Growing up in the south of Sweden, surrounded by stacks of World of Interiors magazines, Berglund says her mother – also an antiques dealer – regularly took her to visit galleries and museums as a child. ‘She taught me to look and to criticise if I did or didn’t like something. She taught me to be picky, which is essential in the interior-design field.’
She previously worked with her mother in their Manhattan- based shop and gallery Laserow Antiques, so it’s unsurprising the entrepreneur’s home is filled with some of her most cherished finds. Pieces in the living room include Cassina chairs designed by Mario Bellini, which surround the custom 10-seater walnut table, a vintage Roger Capron cocktail table, an Axel Einar Hjorth cabinet and a Jean-Michel Frank armchair, upholstered in a fabric by Hermès. ‘I’d been wanting that chair for 15 years,’ she says of the piece, which she found at an auction. ‘It’s the perfect chair. It’s timeless, yet feels modern.’
The contrast of Scandinavian modernity and mid-century taste is evident throughout the home, most notably in the kitchen, which runs seamlessly as a free-flowing communal space from the living room. With her love of cooking, Berglund wanted ‘extremely unsensitive’ stainless-steel counters and cabinetry by Tre Sekel. Elsewhere, Nordic Knots textiles add texture, from the fringed ‘Walnut’ rug in the living room, to the curtains (in shade ‘Pale Blue’) and the custom-made headboards in the bedrooms. Meanwhile, the spacious bathroom is a melange of oak, slabs of Swedish marble and built-in locker-style cabinets. ‘I believe that nice-looking storage is the key to life,’ she says, noting that bed linens, underwear and workout clothes are stored in the bathroom, not bedroom, for ease and to avoid clutter.
While Berglund’s home is an interiors triumph, she says she needs to ‘step up’ her art game. In addition to a painting by Michi Itami, her collection includes an abstract piece by Aythamy Armas, who they collaborated with for Nordic Knots, a selection of 18th-century flower oil paintings, and vintage furniture by Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret. ‘We have a Josef Albers screen print that my husband and I bought, extremely hungover, in New York back in 2014. It’s followed us wherever we’ve moved.’
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HENRIK LUNDELL; STYLING BY GRACE CLARKE
This article appears in the October 2024 issue of ELLE UK, out now.
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